Trial begins in West Chester murder case

WEST CHESTER — Was the shooting death of a West Chester man the predetermined result of a botched drug robbery, as the prosecution claimed in its opening statement Tuesday in the murder trial of a Delaware County man?

Or was the shooting, as the man’s attorney contended in his address to the Common Pleas Court jury, an instinctive reaction to the mistaken belief that one of his friends had been shot during a drug buy?

The difference in those two versions of events is what will determine whether Sergio Jose Droz is found guilty by the jury of nine men and three women of first- or second-degree murder — charges that carry with them mandatory sentences of life in prison without parole — or the lesser charge of third-degree murder.

Droz, 21, of Chester, faces murder, robbery and conspiracy charges in the January killing of 24-year-old Jamal Ahmed Scott of West Chester.

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Testimony is to begin Wednesday in Judge William Mahon’s courtroom.

Scott died of a single gunshot wound to the heart from a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol during what prosecutor Deputy District Attorney Ronald Yen said was a drug robbery hatched by Droz and four other men from Chester. He said Scott drove himself from the shooting outside the Apartments for Modern Living on South Matlack Street in West Chester to the Chester County Hospital, where doctors were unable to save his life.

Yen’s contention to the jurors is that what occurred was either a felony murder committed in the course of a planned robbery of marijuana that Scott had with him the night of his death and that Droz and his friends had fraudulently arranged to buy, or a “simple and straightforward” premeditated murder.

“Mr. Droz shot his victim at can’t-miss, point-blank range with a deadly weapon,” Yen told the jurors in his opening statement. “That is the essence, the sine qua non, the heart of what a first-degree murder is.”

Yen told the panel that police tracked down Droz and the five other men after finding a telephone number to one of the men, Calvin Tompkins, in a cell phone found in the Honda Civic that Scott was driving that night. Droz was arrested on Feb. 4.

Droz gave a 90-minute statement to West Chester police investigators the morning after his arrest in which he gradually admitted that he had shot Scott as he sat in the driver’s seat of the Honda. Droz was outside of the car and fired as many as three shots into the front door and driver’s side window.

Yen told the jury that they would see Droz’s videotaped confession and surveillance video from outside the apartment complex on Matlack Street, commonly known as the Sidetrack Apartments, showing Droz making his way to the scene of the murder.

But in his brief opening statement, defense attorney Jonathan Consadene told the panel that rather than being part of a robbery conspiracy, Droz had gone along with his friends to West Chester so they could buy marijuana.

“He came along for the ride,” Consadene said.

“My client is willing to take responsibility for what he did,” Consadene said. “My client did pull the trigger. But what he is not willing to take responsibility for is a first- or second-degree murder. My client did not go to West Chester with the purpose of killing anyone.”

The defense attorney said that Droz had been given a 9 mm handgun by another man, and that as he stood outside the car where Anthony Brightwell, one of his co-defendants, was supposed to pay Scott for the marijuana, he suddenly heard a shot ring out. He then saw Brightwell fall out of the car.

Droz acted on impulse, Consadene said, and fired the shot that killed Scott.

Droz is the first of the five co-defendants to go to trial on the charges. Two of the men — Tompkins and Nafis Janey — have pleaded guilty to third-degree murder charge and have been sentenced to state prison. The remaining defendants, Brightwell and Tyrone Palmer, are scheduled for trial in front of Mahon later.